


to come clean

by Iambic



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: M/M, Pining, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:39:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10018847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: Raphael vs temptation, featuring Ivory's back, Ivory's impressive sense of time, and a shower.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this at the kink meme over at LJ community [Thremedon](http://thremedon.livejournal.com) approximately six and a half years ago, lost track of it entirely, forgot what I'd written about, and then found last week when I started chatting with a couple Havemercy fans here. I've edited a lot since finding it, so if you've read the original it's not _quite_ the same.
> 
> Special thanks to Argendriel for pointing me in the right direction, and also to everyone on the Havemercy tag who took this little crackship of mine that could and carried it all the way here.

Originally they had only shared the shower because Raphael had missed most of his shower slot after a hard landing. Ivory's invitation ("We'll share as long as you don't use that fancy soap") _could_ have been meant in a more hands-on approach, but that probably came too close to wishful thinking. Ivory had yet to give a visible damn about Raphael, except apparently where the soap was concerned.  
  
Raphael hadn't meant to look. He didn’t care to go down in history as the Dragon Corps’ Own Cindy. For one thing, consequences would range from humiliating to outright dangerous; for another, Ivory would probably never again let him closer than at least twenty feet. He’d lose all the progress he’d made. And then he’d know the skin of Ivory’s back and the shape of his thighs, as if Ivory didn’t already feature enough in Raphael’s better fantasies.  
  
But an accidental glance, he couldn't help it, could he? The shower room wasn’t that big. And the casual observation that Ivory's shoulders were more elegant than the shoulders of most military men, the way they sloped and curved away into strong, sinewed arms, that was entirely objective. The contrast between Ivory's alarmingly pale skin and the darkness of dragon soot just happened to catch Raphael's eye, the way he'd been trained to see the movement of Ke-han troops at night.

_Plausible deniability_ was man’s best friend in a war. Other than his dragon.  
  
So he’d let Ivory’s nakedness burn into his eyes and then looked away to wash himself. He had stepped from the spray, dried off, gotten dressed with as much poise as could be reasonably expected. If Ivory had paid him any attention, he gave no acknowledgement when Raphael helplessly looked back on his way out.

He had assured himself that while the damage had been done, it wouldn’t happen again. Only it did, because Ivory had observed that by combining their slots, they ended up with a longer shower. Ivory was a subtle man. None of Rook’s explosive temper, nor Luvander’s practiced charm, nor Amery’s amiable friendliness—Ivory said as little as he needed to get the point across. Possibly even without the knife. He unnerved people; he was an unnerving man. He wielded it to deadly effect. Given any opening, he’d take every advantage he could wring from it. But his fingernails were always clean, his jaw always smooth.  
  
So surely it was convenience and nothing more that lead Ivory to make the offer, next time they got in at the same time. It had only been proximity that involved Raphael, and maybe a shared appreciation of quiet. Raphael could also tell himself that the same sense of practicality had lead him to accept, but, well. A man could tell himself many things.  
  
But Ivory had offered, and Raphael had agreed, and on his head be the consequences and benefits both. A well-oiled system. Sign up for the same patrols, sign up for sequential shower slots, don't tell anyone else. Raphael made sure not to look across the shower too much. Ivory, who rarely said much, said nothing at all.  
  
Until one day, they both broke tradition.  
  
Raphael would later make the excuse to himself that he was tired. Dazed. They spent a little too long wearing at Ke-han defenses, only limping home as the sun began to light up the edge of the horizon. He and Ivory stumbled into the shower, for once neither more graceful than the other. Raphael collapsed against the wall, eyes shut, taking in his heat until he could feel his fingers again. Water washed the salt from his face, dripping past his mouth to make him taste it. The tension began to ease out of his muscles. Then he made the mistake of opening his eyes.  
  
And really, it wasn't entirely his fault, because he could hardly control the fact that Ivory was an absolutely stunning figure. He'd done his best not to fixate, but turning away required more energy and self-restraint than he could summon right now. It was easier to watch the soot trail down Ivory's back and arms in streams of black, leaving him striped like some kind of exotic animal. Raphael could have closed his eyes again. He didn't.  
  
"You're staring," Ivory said.  
  
"I'm," Raphael began, and then stopped as he discarded most of the responses he could think of. There was no use denying it. Explaining himself probably wouldn’t go any better. "Sorry," he finished.  
  
"There's no point being sorry," Ivory said, and rinsed the rest of the soap from his hair. "We have twelve minutes."  
  
Raphael wasted another few seconds when his brain promptly tripped over itself in an effort not to jump to conclusions. "Wait—but you— _what_?"  


"Unless you're staring at me because Luvander painted my face blue again," Ivory said, and it simply wasn't fair that he could acknowledge the alternative in such a calm voice, or that he could maintain such perfect composure while Raphael continued to make a fool of himself. Even now, Ivory only nods, serene. "But he didn't."  
  
"No," Raphael replied, stupidly, "he didn't."  
  
He didn't move, but suddenly Ivory was right in his personal space, which meant one of two things: reality was warping around them, or Ivory had stepped closer. One seemed about as likely as the other, in a city full of margraves. Then Ivory splayed both hands against Raphael's chest, and shoved him not gently against the wall.  
  
The proximity was doing all sorts of things to Raphael's body that he'd been trying to avoid since they'd started sharing showers. When he tried to think of an excuse, his brain responded with absolutely nothing. "You're right."  
  
"You can stop repeating me," Ivory said, and then his lips barely curved in less of a smile, which would have been shocking enough, but a smirk. As if Raphael wasn't turned on enough as it was. "Do better things with your mouth."  
  
Raphael wasn't used to having to worry if the other person was enjoying himself. But then again, he'd been trying not to want to touch Ivory for a while now—it wasn't difficult to let himself reach out, now, hands sliding down, mouthing the side of Ivory's jaw. It was more than a little surreal, but surreal Raphael knew well enough not to mind. And Ivory's response was encouraging, pressing him closer against the steam-soaked wall. Surreal was Raphael feeling for himself that he wasn't the only one who wanted this.  
  
Ivory had always seemed so flat, so reserved. Under the spray of hot water and Raphael's hands he came to life, all dragonfire force and heat. Skin-to-skin, Raphael felt their pulses quicken in polyrhythm, and then Ivory pushed back, took him in one hand and stroked, fast and just shy of painful. The other hand stayed pushed against Raphael's chest, holding him in place. "Ten minutes," Ivory whispered, voice ragged, breathing quicker, and Raphael lasted not long at all.  
  
He threw his head back as he came, hitting the wall hard enough to hurt, loud enough that Ivory's hand against his chest moved up to cover his mouth, but Raphael managed not to make a sound himself. The sensation that shot through him, white-hot against the sparks of head against wall, left him sagging against the wall. " _Ivory_ ," he said, shocked. He slid then to the floor.  
  
"Eight minutes," Ivory said, and so Raphael didn't thank him or say anything at all, just pulled him in against the wall and grabbed him by the hips. The soot and sweat was mostly washed away by now, leaving only the faintest of tastes on Ivory's skin, but Raphael breathed it in and ran his tongue along the curve of Ivory's pelvis. It was satisfying in an entirely new way to hear Ivory's breath catch, the choke of him cutting off whatever sound he'd been about to make. "Make it fast," Ivory told him, voice tight and low. With someone else Raphael might have purposefully taken his time. But Ivory’s breathy orders shot through his chest and staggered him.  
  
Ivory twisted his fingers in Raphael’s hair as Raphael took him into his mouth, yanking Raphael forward, pushing him back. No surprise that he would be ruthless. Raphael moaned into it, Ivory’s weight in his mouth and warmth against his skin. Maybe, maybe next time, he could lay Ivory back and take his time with this, suck him off slow and gentle and make it last. See how long it would take for him to grow too impatient to take it. What kind of noises he would make. How he might look, laid out on Raphael’s bed.

When he finally came, Ivory was leaning on crossed arms against the tiled wall, harsh of breath and with the smallest of sighs. They both shook there for a moment, trembling together above and below. Then Ivory offered a hand up to Raphael in a way that was almost friendly. Raphael gargled shower water. Ivory made a very subtle face that might have been a smile.  
  
"So do we. Um. Act as if nothing happened?" Raphael asked a little later, finishing the washing he never got around to doing before. "Or—” he swallowed, hard— “would you want, that is to say, we could theoretically do this again."  
  
"The same slot as before." Ivory nodded, decisive. "Yes."  
  
Before Raphael could ask if he meant the combined shower, the sex, or both, Ivory stepped back and lay a hand against his face. Not a caress, really, too clinical for intimacy. An exploration. The kiss that followed, though, at the corner of Raphael’s mouth—and he would spend a long time later, running that memory over and over again instead of falling asleep—that, at least, was a pretty clear response.  


"Two minutes," Ivory said, an afterthought.

 


End file.
